In recent years, Taiwan’s visibility in Danish news has grown. As the risk of military escalation has risen, so too has media attention. While coverage has expanded, it has not necessarily become deeper or more diverse. That imbalance is clear in a study I conducted of five major Danish outlets, analyzing every article about Taiwan published over six months. While the study covers only Danish news within a limited timeframe, I am confident that the findings reflect a broader pattern in Western journalism.
The results were revealing, although not surprising: Taiwan was overwhelmingly framed through the lens of great-power rivalry. China and the US appeared in almost every article, while Taiwanese — workers, students, voters — were almost entirely absent.
Foreign news tends to prioritize geopolitical stories for good reason. Readers in Europe want to know whether tensions would affect global stability, trade or defense alliances. However, this way of covering a conflict risks stripping it of its human dimension.
As media academic Herbert Gans has argued, journalism should not only explain what is happening. It also defines who it is happening to. The stories that are told, and those that are left untold, shape whose lives are recognized as meaningful.
What are missing are the human perspectives that make distant conflicts tangible. What do cross-strait tensions mean for a young conscript in Taipei? How does global tech dependency shape life for a worker in Hsinchu? What does identity mean for someone born after Taiwan’s democratic transition? These questions are almost entirely absent from Danish reporting.
Although it is encouraging that Taiwan is covered to a reasonable extent, nuance remains absent. It deserves more than to be framed as a pawn between powers. It deserves to be shown as the diverse and complex society it is.
Karina Halskov is a Danish journalist.
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